Key Quotes - World Issues

Net migration from the EU to the UK has fallen to its lowest level in nearly five years, official figures show. An estimated 101,000 more people from the bloc arrived than left in 2017, according to the first data for a full calendar years since the Brexit vote. The latest figure is the lowest for any 12-month period since the year to March 2013, when it stood at 95,000.

World Issues

The Sentinel - 17th July 2018

Hungary has approved a constitutional amendment making it more difficult for refugees to gain asylum and passed legislation which threatens people helping asylum seekers with up to a year in prison.

World Issues

The Sentinel – 21st June 2018

In 2017 the number of euthanasia cases in Belgium increased by fourteen per cent according to an official report by the federal control and evaluation committee.

Key Findings:

In 2016/17 there were 4,337 deaths.
3 children under the age of 18 were euthanised
710 patients had conditions such as sight loss or incontinence

World Issues

CARE Impact Direct - 27th July 2018

More than half of all child refugees remain in their home countries, research by World Vision suggests. The charity’s report On the Road to Somewhere suggests that the UK, and other wealthy countries, are not committing enough funding to the needs of those 16 million internally displaced children. Among the recommendations is “empowering children as agents of peace”.

World Issues

Church Times - 22 June 2018

There were 1,523 medically assisted deaths in Canada in the last six-month reporting period — a nearly 30 per cent increase over the previous six months. Cancer was the most common underlying medical condition in reported assisted death cases.

World Issues

CBC - June 21st 2018 (CARE Impact Direct - June 22nd 2018)

A new annual report on the death penalty has called sub-Saharan Africa a “beacon of hope” amid a decline in executions worldwide. Twenty countries across sub-Saharan Africa have now abolished the death penalty for all crimes, Amnesty International said. Just two countries in the region, Somalia and South Sudan, carried out executions last year. Executions worldwide dropped again in 2017, with at least 993 recorded in 23 countries – down 4% from the year before and down 39% from 2015.

World Issues

The Sentinel - 13th April 2018

Twenty years after the United Nations first laid out the rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs), millions are still languishing in “protracted crises” without the funding to meet their basic humanitarian needs, William Lacy Swing, the head of the UN’s International Organisation for Migration, said on Tuesday. The number of IDPs had almost doubled since 1998, to 40 million.

World Issues

Church Times - 20th April 2018

Newborn babies in low-income, underdeveloped or conflict-ridden countries are dying at an “alarmingly high rate”, owing to a lack of affordable, quality health-care, nutrition and clean water, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned. In a new report, Every Child Alive: The urgent need to end newborn death, UNICEF states that 2.6 million newborn babies around the world do not survive their first month of life: of these, one million die on the day that they are born.

World Issues

Church Times - 23rd February 2018

The leaders of 44 African Countries have signed up to one of the world’s largest free-trade deals, creating a single market of 1.2 billion people. The African Continental Free Trade Area, signed on 21 March in Kigali, Rwanda, puts the countries into a single trading bloc. This would be the largest created since the World Trade Organization in 1995.

World Issues

Church Times – 6 April 2018

Pakistan is the riskiest country for newborns, the UN children’s agency said. Of every 1,000 infants born, 46 dies at birth.

World Issues

The Sentinel - 21 February 2018

According to the latest report from Oregon State in the US, 143 had an assisted suicide death last year. As in previous years, a significant proportion (55%) of those opting for assisted suicide cited concerns about being a burden on family, friends or caregivers as one of the reasons for their decision.

World Issues

CARE Impact Direct - 16th February 2018

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) – who remain in their countries after being forced to flee their homes – are being overlooked 20 years after a landmark UN agreement on the issue, Christian Aid has said. Although there were twice as many IDPs as refugees, and their numbers had risen by ten million in four years, new UN discussions on the refugee crisis had side-lined IDPs, Christian Aid’s political adviser, Tom Viita, said; and UN guidelines agreed 20 years ago were vital, but political interest in implementation had waned just as the problem had spiralled out of control.

World Issues

Church Times – 16 February 2018

Austria’s Constitutional Court has decided that same-sex couples will be allowed to marry by the beginning of 2019, bringing the country in line with more than a dozen other western European nations.

World Issues

The Sentinel – 6th December 2017

One in 12 children live in countries where their life chances are fewer than those of their parents, a report published last week by UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, suggests. The analysis, released to coincide with World Children’s Day on Monday of last week, found that, in 37 countries, 180 million young people were more likely to exist in extreme poverty, be out of school, or be killed by violence than the equivalent generation two decades before. This was despite significant improvements in living standards for most of the world’s children. UNICEF’s analysis found that the number of people living on less than $1.90 a day had increased in 14 countries, mostly due to unrest, conflicts, or poor governance.

World Issues

Church Times – 1st December 2017

More than 100 religious leaders have signed a statement, during Faith Week (this week), calling for improved rights and better support for people who no longer have a home country. There are an estimated ten million “stateless” people worldwide.